Japanese and HTML.. the languages

Tonks_kittygoth · Post by **Tonks_kittygoth** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:39 pm

Math makes my brain sad....

Post by **Jeff Georgeson** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:59 pm

If you're doing web page stuff, HTML is the language to learn; it's the language around which web pages are built, and the language that browsers (Netscape, Internet Explorer) parse into the lovely layouts you see while browsing

Generally, if you're doing HTML you'll probably also learn about dynamic HTML and cascading style sheets. These are really just fancier ways of doing web pages, and are so common now they're considered just part of web programming. Among many other thngs, they allow you to lay out your web page with as much control over the design as you'd have for a printed piece like a magazine. (I remember the days when you had to fight with the HTML to get anything to appear where you really wanted it ... and you had to make your web pages walk uphill both ways to school, and ...

)

You can also get software that does all the HTML coding for you, but it usually has limitations and frustrates me no end--plus, you don't really learn the language that way! It's like going to Japan with an automatic translation device and talking to everyone through it, without bothering to learn Japanese--you can only hope it'll do what you want it to do, and you still won't know what's going on without it to lean on.

One of the best ways to learn HTML (once you have a basic grasp of how it works) is to look at the code underlying other people's pages. This is a great way to get ideas for your own stuff!

Of course, web pages can also contain other languages and scripts, or links to outside programs that do various things (like access databases, or run searches, or create animation), but at some level it all has to return to HTML or be embedded in HTML in order for it to show up on the web.

Jeff

Post by **Jeff Georgeson** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:06 pm

Oh, and HTML is more about layout and design, really, than about math. You can certainly get into mathematical stuff in it (or in embedded scripts), but for the most part you don't have to. Mostly you're just learning terms and what they do (like using <b> to make bold text, and </b> to turn it back to normal).

Jeff

james_sb · Post by **james_sb** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:41 am

Right click on a part of the page your viewing and click on "view source"
It'll look all weird because at first you won't be able to tell where commands start and end (like sentances, but not laid out in recognisable format) and there's a lot of code that begins at the start, but doesn't close until the end, with lots in the middle. But use 'ctrl-f' to find, say a piece of writing that appears on screen and you can see the commands surrounding it.

For example, this is the code for the e-mail link under jeff's post above.

<a href="mailto:ghost@neomythos.com"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/lang_english/icon_email.gif" alt="Send e-mail" title="Send e-mail" border="0" /></a>

That's <a href="WEBSITE HERE">WRITING YOU WANT ON SCREEN HERE</a> to make a link.
You always have to start and end the code, and know the tags for each command.

In the above example, instead of having words appearing on the screen, they've inserted a picture by putting in <img src="IMAGE URL">
They've also added a few extra commands for the picture, see if you can tell what they do.

If you do end up wanting a translator. Microsoft Frontpage works well. You configure one page like a word document and it shows you the HTML for it, and the appearance on a internet browzer.

Jeni Nielsen · Post by **Jeni Nielsen** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:03 am

Goes off to buy HTML For Dummies. :p

Anyhow thanks for all the advice. Should I thread this into a different topic or should I just give up and say we've all gone woefully off-topic?

james_sb · Post by **james_sb** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:11 am

Nah, I'll just re-name the thread.

But to go back on topic, can you give an example of Japanese translation? Might just give a flavour of what it's like, see if I still think I can learn it.

Tonks_kittygoth · Post by **Tonks_kittygoth** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 9:52 pm

If you can afford it, Dreamweaver is a big help for doing Html. I dont know a lot about it but my husband is a graphic designer and is learning it too.

Dreamweaver among other things brings up comands when you type in the first couple of letters. The most annoying thing about html i have heard, is that you have to get every space, punctuation, everthing perfect or it doesnt work. + sometimes the comands are increadably long.

Good luck!

Post by **Jeff Georgeson** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:47 am

Actually, HTML is pretty forgiving in terms of spaces, capital letters versus lower case, etc. Try something like Visual Basic or C++ or even Javascript for some real fun in that regard

Ummm ... I don't know enough Japanese to give you an example (but at least I've used the word "Japanese" in my post

)

Jeff

ryann · Post by **ryann** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:34 pm

I also want to learn Japanese, it is on my list. First I want to finish school and fix my spanish up.
Hopefully this site might help you. It has sentences and there translation on it.
http://www.japanese-online.com
There are alot of good site that can help you.
I pretty much taught my self spanish off of http://www.studyspanish.com, along with my school textbook.

james_sb · Post by **james_sb** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:55 pm

ryann wrote: http://www.japanese-online.com
There are alot of good site that can help you.

That's a really good looking site. They have wav files of conversation and all.

I never would have looked on the internet for learning a language before, but even though I've been using it for years, I'm still getting more used to searching out everything I need materialisticly from it. I think I'll definitly be using the internet to learn Japenese now, when I take it on as a personal project.
[first instinct was books, classes, instruction from fluent people. But I've learned more about how to teach myself and would now feel confident to do this. Just something on a point about how a more educated society changes.. this being an indepth philosophical forum at the best of times.

]

sonic · Post by **sonic** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:04 pm

Doing things like HTML is very exhausting on the eyes and the mind. I half-learnt how to do it once (with a lot of "what's this junk-code that I don't know what it does at the bottom of the page here? Oh well, leave it be. Just keep snipping things and pasting things until it works!" -which it did, eventually!)... But it's too much effort when I don't use it hardly ever to remember how to do it. Now I just get Jeff to do it for me.

Is lazy...

sonic · Post by **sonic** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:29 pm

And as for Japanese, it is the best language I've ever learned. The second best was French, but my scary teacher always had me on edge, so I didn't always concentrate as well as I could have. Japanese really has a great sound to it, and something about it just... makes sense, somehow. Perhaps it's because I'm a very abstract person a lot of the time. And that it helps me buy off of Yahoo Japan, and dig even deeper into the world of video games that I love. But on the serious side, it is one of the most useful languages you could probably have for the future. One thing it has done however is made my English worse. It's like an endorsement to follow my natural inclinations to say things back-to-front and oddly! I picked up some really odd ways of saying things in English from spending so much time around people who aren't native English speakers, and now my sentences are a lot more "interesting"...

The only thing I'd recommend when learning is "don't look forwards or backwards". If I look forward, I think "there's soooo much! Overwhelming! I want to know this now!" (or at worst, "I my gosh, I'm not even a 5 year old!"). And if I look backwards, I don't pay attention to what I'm doing now or I might get complacent (or at worst think to myself,"Argh, I've forgotten everything already, and all I have left to show for it is the bags under my eyes that I got from studying so hard!"). So, do not look forwards or backwards for too long, concentrate on working at it now, and try to live what you are doing and enjoy what you can get out of it. For the first time I started using this technique, and I realised that while I can't help but forget somethings and have to go back to them later, I really am learning a lot and getting more from studying a language than I ever have. I still wouldn't mind being one of those people to whom being a linguist is completely natural for them, though.

Studying a language is one of the most useful things you can study. It gives you more of the world to find your place in and to make your opportunities... Really if you could only spend time studying one thing, it's the most logical thing.

Black Mamba · Post by **Black Mamba** » Mon May 01, 2006 2:33 pm

Lately I've been debating about spending this summer studying Japanese. Its something I always wanted to do, but always thought it would be too hard (expecially by myself). Unfortunatly my school offers no classes.

I love the culture and I see myself frequently visiting Japan, no matter what my occupation, in the future. Learning the language is inevitable, so why not start learning the basics now?

sonic · Post by **sonic** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:40 am

You should find a school that offers it, I think. It is worth doing- I always thought it'd be too hard, too. Luckily for me I got into a class that isn't to into the technical terminology of language (i.e. a more academic style of teaching), and I've just been able to learn it very naturally and unpretentiously. As languages scare me too, a heavy-handed kind of class like that wouldn't have been so good for me. In English I never learnt what every part of the sentence is called either. I was so surprised hen I realised that so many people knew about that stuff...